DA training 4,300 LGU-based agri-technicians

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) is training 4,320 agricultural technicians at the local government level this year to complete its program of teaching palay check technology, lowland vegetables and root crops, organic fertilizer production and other environment-friendly farming practices and technologies to over a half-million farmers nationwide. In a report to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Director Asterio Saliot of the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) said the training of the 4,320 technicians would be done in 144 batches between March and July this year. These 4,320 trainees comprise the bulk of the 6,120 agricultural technicians covered by the DA program spearheaded by the ATI to help educate over half a million farmers in new environment-friendly rice farming technologies. Saliot said these technicians would, in turn, serve as trainors to over 500,000 farmers in field schools located in the 2,600 clusters or sites where the DA would channel a bulk of its funds for intervention measures in 2009. Under the program, 60 batches comprising 1,800 trainors were trained up during the November-December 2008 period. The ATI conducts its hands-on training workshops in its centers as well as in the facilities of the DA and the local government units (LGUs) all over the country, Saliot said. He said the training in farmers’ field schools, on the other hand, began last December and wouldl go on until October this year. Besides providing training on organic fertilizer manufacturing, Saliot said the ATI is also teaching trainors on new technologies to boost the production of palay such as “Palay Check," vegetables and root crops. The 1,800 agricultural technicians who completed training in 2008 will, in turn, train 80,997 participants in farmers field schools during the December 2008 to March 2009 Dry Cropping Season, and another 439,123 this year under this program. The training project is in line with the new DA policy, as laid out by Yap last year, to funnel most of its funds into “hard" projects like irrigation maintenance and post-harvest facilities along with rural extension work rather than on “soft" initiatives like fertilizer or seed support. - GMANews.TV